Blames Imran for flouting country’s laws
PML-N Senior Vice President Maryam Nawaz on Sunday came down hard on the PTI, saying that the latter’s politics only revolved around appointments to the country’s top posts.
She made the remarks while addressing the office-bearers of the PML-N lawyers’ wing alongside Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah a day after PTI chief Imran Khan challenged the country’s incumbent rulers to put forward a plan to rescue Pakistan from the many crises it found itself mired in, and laid out his own roadmap to recovery.
At the outset of her talk, Maryam said that she had previously stated in her speeches that the PML-N was not afraid of elections, but merely wanted the scales of justice to be balanced before they were conducted.
“We are not scared of elections. We are not selected, we are elected. Those who are selected should be worried,” she said.
She also took exception to assertions that the PML-N only wanted to delay elections till October as a new chief justice would be in place by then.
“PTI’s whole politics revolves around which appointment is happening when. Yesterday, this slipped out of Sheikh Rashid’s mouth during the rally. That showed me that their entire politics revolves around appointments.”
She said that previously the PTI had the support of some from the military establishment, who had since left. “Now, they have found the judicial establishment,” she remarked.
She said that the PTI’s long march last year in November was aimed at making the appointment of the new army chief controversial. “Their entire politics revolves around appointments, around crutches. Their entire politics revolves around facilitators.”
Maryam said that Imran had “brazenly and blatantly” flouted the country’s laws by hiding in his home despite being summoned by the courts. “And when he went, he took armed groups […] tell me when in our history has someone been facilitated like this.”
Drawing a comparison with PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif, Maryam said her father faced false cases on the basis of which he was later disqualified.
But when Imran, who has continuously been flouting the laws of the land, goes to court, he is given bail left and right with the “strike of a pen”, she said. Maryam said Nawaz, Sanaullah and she herself had appeared before the courts in false cases but had never taken an armed group with them.
She said that the police went to Zaman Park in Lahore, where Imran’s residence is located, to implement the orders of the court yet officials were attacked with stones and petrol bombs. “The entire state was attacked from there just because police went to implement the court’s orders. Why are Pakistan’s laws and the Constitution sleeping? Why is action not being taken? […] Who is it who is protecting him (Imran) to this day?” Putting her hand on her chest, Maryam said she was a democratic political worker. “I think that there is no other solution apart from elections. Elections should happen after every five years but there should be political stability in the country,” she said as she asserted that the PML-N would take part in and win the polls. She said that the PTI was clamouring about the Constitution being violated but had forgotten when the Supreme Court unanimously struck down ex-National Assembly Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri’s ruling on the no-confidence motion against Imran.
